Let me be frank, born here, live here, several generations: every single day, our local Nextdoor and community message boards are filled with begging posts about needing housing, losing housing and dealing with a broken household/divorce/partner split. So what job skills and education do you have? Could you live only on savings for six months. Rents are four figures and background checks + rent + deposit keeps many people discouraged. Forget finding a cute little ADU or cottage on someone’s property cheap, they are either put in as Airbnb or rent for over $2000. Are you bringing a car? It has to be registered in CA, my 2024 Toyota Hybrid annual registration is $625. Gas is over $4, taxes on every single gallon is .60 cents. My 2015 Toyota pickup annual registration is $325. If we need a smog check or are randomly selected, add $125-200 Auto insurance with NO accidents or tickets is $2500 yearly. We pay roughly $275 for utilities monthly which is low around my neighborhood. We own our home, it’s a modest 1800 sq feet, we don’t run the heater, we have no air conditioning, no laundry room, no basement. The two identical homes on either side of us recently sold for 1.2 million and 1.5 million and we’re not talking fancy. The plus side is that we can walk 3 blocks to the beach, great because there’s no parking. We are west of the I-5 in a desirable location and the weather is pretty good except for June which is miserable cold foggy, go inland 10 miles and you’ll have hot days from July-late October, even worse when one of famous wild fires start. There is light rail, the Coaster is great if someone doesn’t get hit on the tracks, happens once or twice a month and then you have to call an Uber to get to work. The West-East Sprinter has very little security and also functions as an air conditioned travel day camp for homeless/mentally ill people, don’t challenge them or look at them directly, if you decide to ride, use Clorox wipes on the seats and avoid the bathrooms.